Monday, June 6, 2011

Peter Puffin and the International Children's Festival

The last month of school is here and boy is it a busy one! We started the month off by attending a fundraising concert at Gabbie's school. The school has been fundraising for a new playground and they have a new one going in this summer. When Peter Puffin heard about the schools fundraising efforts he offered to do a benefit concert and donate all the proceeds to the school for the playground. The kids were super excited to go and loved the concert. By the time the concert ended we had to hurry home and give the kids a quick bath and get them to bed because they had another big day - the International Children's Festival. Ollie's preschool had a field trip their last Thursday and we were able to purchase extra tickets and we pulled Gabbie out of school for the day and dh even took the day off work to come with us!

This was my first time going to the festival but it certainly won't be the last! What a great festival - we all really enjoyed it! We left around 9am and drove out to St. Albert were the festival was being held. Then we took the free park and ride to the festival site. Our first show was at 11 am so we had a little time to look around the festival site before we had to line up to get our seats.

The first show we saw was Splash n' Boots. Excellent show - very interactive and lots of singing and dancing for the kids. Even the adults really enjoyed it.

Then we had a stop at the storyteller tent before lunch. It was ok - not bad but not great either. Then we had a picnic lunch. I packed hummus, crackers, strawberries, raspberries, grapes and veggies and dip to eat. We were all hungry and ate up but the kds were disappointed because there was a hotdog stand that was selling veggie dogs and they really wanted that. Actually there was a few vegan options at the festival - an ice cream place that had all dairy free ice creams, a veggie panini, and veggie dogs.

The next show we saw was excellent too. It was a glow in the dark puppet show presenting The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other Eric Carle favourites. It was put on by the Mermaid Theatre from Nova Scotia and it was so, so well done! They had a Q&A afterwards and explained to the kids how the show works with black light and how all the puppets work. Really interesting and entertaining!

As a treat after all the shows were done we bought the kids a veggie dog - they topped it off with ketchup, mustard, raw onions, sauerkraut and pickles! It was a great day and it made me excited for all the fun things we're gonna do this summer!